It is startling to open your budget and see a negative Ready to Assign (RTA) at the top of the screen. Instead of the soothing grey or the buoyant green RTA you probably expect, the red one is like an ugly alarm. And this is the time of the month that it usually happens, because it can be the result of overspending in the prior month.
If you find your RTA is unexpectedly red, go back to the prior month and look for overspending. There’s a very good chance the amount of cash overspending in the prior month will match the amount of red RTA. To fix it, move money in last month’s budget to cover the overspending. The available bubble will turn grey, as will the current month’s RTA.
The same holds true if your RTA is less than you expect. It may be due to overspending in the prior month. Do you have to fix it? No, because YNAB has just fixed it for you by taking it out of next month’s RTA. But I know I like my months to end tidily so that I can go back if I need to and see an accurate picture of my financial life in any given month.
For more information on beginning-of-the-month challenges, see my blog post Things to do at the end and beginning of a month.
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